Brothers and Other Breakables
by Min Daae
Summary: AU. Azula has captured Zuko. And all toys break eventually. Character death, dark, depiction of the results of violence.


Azula had learned long ago that all toys broke, save one.

Some lasted longer than others, of course. Some could tolerate nothing at all before they surrendered and broke. Some took longer, maybe a month or two. But in the end they always broke, whether they were dolls or wooden soldiers or people.

But there was one toy that never failed her, and his name was Zuko. She'd had him longer than any other toy, and he still wasn't broken. He always got up and came right back for another round of games. That's why he was so much fun to play with.

But this time, he wasn't playing.

His head hung down, hair (uncouth and long, _peasant _hair) over his face and eyes, and he didn't so much as stir to look at her. His hands were chained behind his back, to the post, but that hadn't stopped him when she'd first come down from lunging toward her, spitting insults and fire like they were one and the same. Now she stood before him and he didn't even seem to notice that she was there.

Her favorite toy. Was it finally broken, just like all the others?

"Aww, Zuzu. Don't look so sad. I'm sure the Avatar will be along…eventually." She stepped closer. "Come now. It's me. Don't you want to say hello?" He looked up, but though another might have mistaken the narrowing of his eye for expression, she knew that it was only there because he couldn't help it.

She reached out and slapped him, painted nails scoring four parallel lines across his cheek. "Didn't mother ever teach you any manners?" She cooed.

"Princess, perhaps you shouldn't stand so-"

She wheeled. "You think he can harm me? Don't be foolish. He always was a weakling. Compared to me, he is nothing." Azula reached out and tipped his head back as blood began to well in the nail marks on his cheek. "Isn't that right? Anything you can do I can do better."

He looked up at her blankly. How ironic, some distant part of her thought, that here and now he should finally master his temper? That was what it was, after all. She refused to believe that her best and longest-lasting toy could finally have given in. That wasn't what she wanted.

There wouldn't be anything to do without Zuko to play with.

She looked down at him, gauging what she knew of his condition. The back of his neck showed a handprint the livid red of a burn. She knew his back was striped with the red, inflamed marks of the repeated lashes, back when he dared to disobey. Bruises mottled his chest and stomach, and his nose had healed crookedly from being broken.

No, she would find a way to break through his shell of calm. "Let him go," she said, suddenly, imperiously. The guards at the door turned and stared at her.

"Princess…?"

"Not out of this room, you dolts. Just undo the chains. I wonder if _Prince _Zuko has anything left in him. And besides, I'm bored. I could use something to practice against." She tossed her hair with practiced carelessness, and smiled. "Of course, if you'd rather not, I could take on one of you instead…"

They hastened to undo the chains, and she watched eagerly as they fell to the ground. Zuko fell forward without their support, with a soft noise that would have been inaudible if she hadn't been listening for it. Adjusting to his knees, his hands went to his wrists, expression tightening as the blood flooded back into his crooked, badly healed fingers.

She didn't give him the time to adjust, dancing back and shooting blue fire at his bare feet with her fingertips. He cried out and recoiled, the most reaction she'd had from him in days. His eyes met hers. Still blank. She could fix that.

"Come," she urged, almost purring. "Show me what you've got."

Zuko dragged himself to his feet, swaying. "I'm not going to fight you," he said in a quiet, raspy voice.

Azula peeled her lips back from her teeth. "What did you say?"

He shook his head. The marks around his wrists of shackles were livid and blistered, and the blood from her clawed slap was reaching his chin. "There's no way to win with you. I understand that now. I thought if I knew the rules – but you'd only change them. I'm not going to fight you."

She remembered the doll she'd been sent from Ba Sing Se. Her brother had received a general's knife. She got a floppy, Earth Kingdom doll. She'd thrown it at the walls, shaken it around, had Mai use it for target practice. But all it ever did was lie down and take everything limply. Pathetic.

She'd set it on fire, eventually.

"What are you scared of?" she taunted. "That I'll beat you again?"

He looked up at her, and she was startled to see him smile. Zuko never smiled. Scowled, often. Glared, almost all the time. But she'd never seen him smile, not since their mother had disappeared. This one wasn't like before either, though: it was haggard, and eerie, and almost made her nervous.

"There isn't anything more," Zuko said, with that strange smile, "That you can do to me, little sister."

She wanted to scream. She wanted to tear her hair out and scream. Instead she fired two bolts of blue fire at him, one on either side. "You will fight me!" she cried. "You will fight me and you will lose! Coward! _Traitor!_"

Zuko sat down with his legs crossed and his hands behind him.

She threw another fireball, this one close enough that the embers singed his hair. He didn't flinch or snarl or even glance sideways. _Who are you, _she wanted to demand, _and what have you done with my brother? _This wasn't Zuko. Zuko was always a fighter, always struggled against every inch he had to give. It was like the knife. _Never give up without a fight. _Zuko never gave up without a fight.

And here he was, refusing to fight her.

"You don't even know what I can do to you!" she yelled, "You have no idea how much I could make you suffer – or them, when they come-"

"You misunderstand my importance," he said, quietly, still sitting. "They won't come." She saw a flicker though, in what she could see of his eyes, and lunged for it.

"Or maybe they will, and that's what you're afraid of? Do you think I'll kill you, Zuzu? _No one rescues a dead man, _is that what you're thinking? You ought to know me better than that. I won't kill you. I don't _have _to. I can make very sure that you suffer forever."

He said nothing. Frustrated, she shot the next bolt of fire straight at his chest, sure he would dodge, would dash it away, would-

Zuko screamed like an animal as the fire crashed into his chest, skin blistering burning peeling in seconds – horrified, Azula turned to one of the guardsmen. "Put it out," she commanded, "Damn you, get rid of it!"

She fumed as they put the flames out, pacing back and forth, her hands clenched at her sides as she listened to her brother panting, the only sound he made after that horrible scream. Her mother's voice came back to her: _Azula, why do you always break your toys? If you keep on like this, I won't buy you any more and soon you'll have none left. _

Where was a healing Water Tribe chit when you needed one?

She batted the guards away when they were done. "Leave," she commanded them. "I think I can manage on my own, don't you?"

She thanked years of her cultivated relationship that they left hurriedly, and turned back to her brother, flat on his back on the floor. She looked down at him in disdain. "Zuzu, why do you _always _have to disappoint me?"

He opened his eyes. "I'm not trying to impress you." Only the slight strain in his voice began to give away the pain he was feeling. "I never was."

She sneered. "No, just father. And look how well you did at that…"

"I'm not going to fight you," he said, faintly. "I'm not going to _fight _you."

"As if you could. Look at you. One little blast and you're whimpering on the floor. Some Prince you are. Oh, forgive me." She laughed, high and sharp. "Were." She knelt beside him, brushing her fingers across the lines of blood she'd drawn. "Poor Zuzu. I feel so sorry for you."

He laughed, hoarsely, as she moved her fingers into his hair, dragging her nails along his scalp. "Azula always lies," he said, with an air of quoting something, and she lashed out again, but not with fire. This time she simply jabbed her fist into his stomach. Zuko curled up into himself, wheezing.

"Stand and fight," she said. "Throw whatever you have at me. You don't want to pay _my _price for failure." She let the lightning crackle around her hands. "If you ask me, father was too merciful. He let you live too long. And furthermore…he let mother live, despite her _treason-_"

"She was your mother too," Zuko said, and she could see him trembling. Progress. She smiled. Maybe the doll wasn't so limp after all.

"None of my family," she said, and leaned forward over him, "Are traitors. Father should have killed her when he had the chance. I just wish he'd done it in front of you. Then you'd be dead and wouldn't have embarrassed us so much-"

"Don't talk about her like that. You loved her too."

Azula laughed, drove the tip of her boot into his shoulder where she knew a stripe from the whip would be, grinned down at him with the most grotesque expression she could muster. "No," Azula said, cruel twisting words to make her brother bleed, bring her toy back to life. "No, I never did."

His hand snapped out and grabbed her collar, anger finally back in his face, in his eyes. She drank it in and smiled as she delivered the final blow. "She was worthless filth. She didn't deserve our father."

He flung her back, rising as he always had, caked in blood and sweat and dirt, gaunt and weak and sick he rose and faced her and whirled into hurling fireball after fireball after jet of flame from hands, feet, fingers-

She let him drive her back, let Zuko think he was winning, that he had surprised her. She wanted to laugh at the way he wavered throwing his attacks, betraying his own weakness, but she waited – she wanted to give him hope, give him a chance to feel like he was gaining.

There had to be something there if one wanted to crush it.

So Azula waited until he had her in a corner, his hands raised to unleash fire on her, chest heaving and face beaded with sweat, to strike back. She pounced, cradling blue fire in her palms, breathed it at him across her hand like a kiss. He swept each blow away with his hands or fire of his own, but the bursts of flame were getting weaker. Only a bit longer and she would end this farce for another week.

But again, Zuko didn't act as she thought he would. Pushed, he would always push back equally hard, but he seemed to be lowering his hands, as though prepared for the next burst of fire – and she could see that the raw wound on his chest was weeping, his eyes glazed with shock.

She didn't want to break her only, her _favorite _toy. Azula lowered her hands.

Zuko lunged.

She wrapped her still burning palms around his arms, but too late. His fingers were already pressing into her throat, dragging her down, and he didn't even seem to realize that she was burning his arms. His thumbs closed over her windpipe, constricted, and for the first time, she was afraid of her brother, of the desperation in his eyes as he forced her to the ground, trying to strangle her bare-handed.

And she realized with horror that it was working. Her vision was blurring. She could barely suck in any air at all. And there were no guards, because she had sent them all away.

Zuko had trapped _her. _

She never knew how she managed to summon it; or perhaps it really was the pet she had always wanted it to be, there when she needed it. The lightning. She swung her arm up, breathed as deep as she could around Zuko's strangling grip, pressed her palm to the center of his chest, and unleashed the force gathered in her body.

Azula watched his eyes widen and the lightning crawling up his neck, gasped in relief as his fingers slackened on her throat and he crumpled. She stood, shaking, and looked down. His body twitched, shuddered, still sparking with electricity. He arched a few times, face contorting in agony, and then curled up like a dying spider, limbs pulled into his body.

Azula caught herself panting and realized that she was the only one making a sound.

_No, _she thought, and kicked her brother's body. "Move," she commanded. "Get up!"

He didn't move at all. _Just like the stupid doll. _She walked around to look at his chest, see the damage.

The skin was black and charred, like coal. Where her hand had touched, she could see the white of her brother's breastbone. She let her eyes travel up, to his face. His eyes were wide, bulging. And empty.

She could feel herself start to shake. _Mother said…mother said if I broke any more of my toys I wouldn't get any more – but there was one I wouldn't break, I couldn't break, and that was what made him such a good toy…_

"Guards!" She yelled, turning to the door. "Guards, find a healer! Bring me a _healer!_"

She knew there were no healers in the palace. Certainly none good enough to treat this. All the skin on his chest was gone, and the way he was staring – that wasn't good, that couldn't be good.

But he wasn't dead. Her favorite toy wasn't _broken. _

"Zuzu," she said, more gently, "Stop playing. This is serious. Get up." Still nothing. He smoked quietly by her feet, tendrils weaving upward as the last of the lightning dancing over his body flickered and died.

"Zuzu," she tried again. "Mom's home!" Nothing. It was like he wasn't there, like he was limp and empty and

_broken_

"No," she said, shakily, "No, Zuko never gives up. I just have to wait long enough and he'll give in. He always does, he never had any _control-_" Had? Has, she corrected herself, vehemently, he has no control, because he's still there, just –

Just a little hurt –

_Azula, why do you always break your toys? _Her mother asked again, and Azula looked down and knew that this wasn't going to be the kind of thing that she could glue back together, or the kind of thing she could get a replacement for, and her favorite toy, her very _favorite_-

_All toys break, _she thought, _eventually. _

She dug her fingers into her face, threw back her head, and screamed.

~.~

They found her there when they came back to check on her, screaming and beating her brother's dead, smoking corpse, wild-eyed and trembling, her hair in disarray and her face streaked with tears. There were livid marks around her neck like fingers.

She was secluded in her room for three days, seeing no one, not even the servants. When she emerged, it was agreed that Princess Azula was greater and more terrifying than ever before. That it was true; none could stand in her way. After all, she'd killed her own brother, the traitor. Now _that, _they whispered with awe, was loyalty.

They announced the news of (former prince) Zuko's death the next day. Somewhere, a group of friends might have bowed their heads in chagrin to hear the news. If they ever heard it at all.

As for Azula herself…

She just wanted a new toy. One that really wouldn't break.

Or mostly, she wanted the old one back.


End file.
